I have been teaching in Beijing now for three months. Some of this is repetition, but well–

So far, so good. Essentially, teaching English in China
and Taiwan is a young person’s game. You must essentially be a high-energy prop
comic specializing in “infotainment.” Furthermore, unless you work
for a legitimate, state-run public school, you will be working for, and with, criminals
and gangsters. And if you work in China, you can make much more money than you
could in Taiwan, but you will not be able to get it out of the country and into
your own bank account without considerable inconvenience. My time down in Cixi was mostly miserable. I was working with old friends from Taiwan who were on a venture in China, but that really was a mistake. I can only say that it has been a
mitigated disaster. Mitigated, because it could have been worse. But still; in
all, a disaster.

I had been working away without a proper Z-class working visa. That
situation has since been rectified, but the people for whom I worked last year had never been able to get me proper
working papers. This is despite my having given them all the required paperwork
on my part. Perhaps it wasn’t really important to them; my employers were actually Taiwanese, and while China considers them to be Chinese, as an
American citizen, I was at risk, not them. Especially since China
and America are in a cold war that is heating up, thanks to the current
administration in Washington.

I have often had to work
six days a week, and sometimes seven. I was supposedly on a set monthly salary,
yet my employers keep track of hours, assessing down to the minute. Worse, I had to pay for my own flights and trips every sixty days to stay in
compliance with my tourist visa. Something I should not have had to do
with a proper work visa. Sick days were limited, as they are in America, nor
were holidays paid.

When I was being courted
to got there, I was told to expect a high salary, in addition to hongbao
from grateful parents. I was promised great wealth. I was told that although
there would be the opportunity to write and publish textbooks, there was
already a curriculum in place from a school called “Calvert.” And I was given
to understand that my friend from Taiwan over twenty years ago, would be
running the show.

In fact, while the pay
was indeed stellar, there was no prepared curriculum for the kindergarten and
pre-k programs, and even fewer materials. The school was brand new, a startup
proposition.

To be fair, I was
not really fit for this position. Indeed, I had protested that I had not been
teaching for some twenty years, and that my skills were extremely rusty. But it
seemed that they expected me to walk right in as if I’d just come off my last
position in Taiwan as a head teacher, well experienced with k and pre-k
curriculum.

But, as I’ve shared, I
have been out of the game since 2002. My skills, unused since then, had
deteriorated badly. Also, I was now twenty years older, twenty years more
cynical, twenty years mentally exhausted, crushed by corporate America’s office
culture. Furthermore, I had been used before by a Taiwanese businessman (read:
low-level criminal) to build the foundations of an empire including curriculum,
and audio materiel (still in use to this day, I’m given to understand). I never
saw a penny of the value I’d helped to create, and was feeling loath to go
through that again. This certainly affected my motivation over that year.

Because I have a conscience, I certainly don’t consider myself worth the salary they were paying
me. but there were other hidden costs, in addition to my having to shell out
for my own airfare every two months.

I had many bills at
home, mostly related to my home. Mostly including utilities, property taxes,
HELOC bills—The original plan had been to rent out the house, so that I could
have some sort of passive income while trying to reestablish myself in China. I
would have needed to bring the house up to code so that I could rent it out.

Now in theory, I should
have been able to do this. Certainly, my salary was sufficient. However, the
first problem was that in China, one is only allowed to purchase USD$500.00 per
day. That meant that it would take me a week to purchase enough money to send
home by wire. Furthermore, without a work visa, I could not have a bank account
of my own, meaning I had to be reliant on my colleagues who did.

Eventually, I could no
longer keep up my home. I was unable to get funds home in sufficient amounts,
or regularly enough to be able to maintain it. And so, nine months into my stay
in China, I had to let go of my childhood home, and my future security. That was hard.

I can only console myself
by remembering that given the information I had at the time, I made the correct
decisions.

I cannot return to
America at this point. Were I to go home now,
what could I do? What would I have? I have no car, no transportation. No home,
no savings to speak of, and no insurance. But I accepted an offer from a high school in
Beijing that is affiliated with Beijing Normal University. It’s a legitimate
public school, and they got me my Z-class work visa. While the
salary is only half what I had been getting at my former place of “employment,”
I am being provided with a free, fully furnished apartment, sixteen weeks of
paid vacation, and they will cover my airfare. Further, the hours will be much
reduced, as I will be working for the public school district, and not a buxiban.
This will give me time to continue writing, and possibly begin seriously
training again in martial arts. In fact, I’ve already got a chapbook ready to format for publishing, and another novel in the editing stages.

I have never before taught high school, but I am enjoying it very much. My students are great, and hard-working. Technically, they want me to simply provide an opportunity for the students to hear and speak native English, but I actually try to teach what I can. I had been told to leave the grammar lessons to their Chinese English teachers. I think that I shocked my supervisor when she saw all the lesson plans I had worked up, and my grasp of education theory. I don’t think that they expected a ‘real’ teacher to be provided to them. The teachers, classes, and principal seem to be happy with me so far.

Another plus is that here in my neighborhood in Beijing, everything I need is convenient to where I live and work. Restaurants, hospital, bank, computer stores, stationery stores– everything is within walking distance or the bus line. It’s a great contrast with Cixi, which was in the middle of nowhere, leaving me dependent upon my hosts.

Heh. They were pissed at me when I left. But, fuck ’em. I lost everything at home because of them.

If I am lucky, I should
be able to support myself for the next ten years or so before I die. And if I am lucky, I may be able to leave
another three or five books behind me, so that my name won’t be completely
forgotten for a few years after I’m gone.

So, there it is. The first year was disastrous for me. But I have survived. I will probably come home to visit next July. I’ll be staying with family in New Jersey, probably.

I am letting my premium subscription expire. So, unless I have a “basic” WordPress account, this might be the last post for quite a long time…not that I was ever scrupulous about being regular, mind you.—

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About Michael Butchin

I was born, according to the official records, in the Year of the Ram, under the Element of Fire, when Johnson ruled the land with a heavy heart; in the Cradle of Liberty, to a family of bohemians.
I studied Chinese language and literature at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. I spent some years in Taiwan teaching kindergarten during the day, and ESOL during the evenings. I currently work as a high school ESOL teacher, and am an unlikely martial artist.
I have spent much of my life amongst actors, singers, movie stars, beautiful cultists, Taoist immortals, renegade monks, and at least one martial arts tzaddik.
I currently reside in Beijing's Fangshan district